Writers, readers, and thinkers participating in the 2024 Walker Percy Weekend will explore the theme “The Speculative South.” In the popular imagination, Southern fiction has readily been associated with the past. But what about depictions of the future? In his novels Love in the Ruins and The Thanatos Syndrome, Walker Percy presented readers with a speculative future—a dystopian Louisiana in which American society has become increasingly fragmented socially, racially, religiously, and ethically—as a means of investigating what he perceived of as society’s disintegration. In the decades since, contemporary novelists have continued to offer speculative visions of a future South, challenging readers to consider how the decisions we make today shape the society our children will inhabit tomorrow.

There is a bourbon stroll during the weekend as well.

Tickets to both can be purchased here.